Have you ever been stuck, not knowing how to extend your immigrant ancestor’s pedigree? The FamilySearch Research Wiki states, “Finding an immigrant ancestor’s place of origin is the key to finding earlier generations of the family. It provides access to many family history resources in that home area. Once you know a former place of residence or birthplace, you may be able to add more generations to your pedigree.”
Today I’m sharing tips on how to find your ancestor’s place of origin. I will explain the process, and then talk about finding the birthplace of Michael Kunch, an immigrant ancestor in a recent client project.
Study Existing Records to Find Clues
The first step to take is to study all the U.S. records you currently have for your ancestor. I like to create a timeline to analyze what I already know. I have often found that the information I am looking for is right there in records that have already been attached to my ancestors. If your tree is on Ancestry or FamilySearch, you can use their built-in timeline features if you don’t want to take the time to create your own timeline. Make sure you examine every record that is attached to your immigrant ancestor on the tree. Are there original records with images that can be viewed? If so, view the original images and look for details about your ancestor’s birthplace. Keep in mind that many records list the country of birth, but you will need to discover the specific town or village that your ancestor came from.
Find New Records That Might Hold the Answer
If you find after examining all existing records that none of them lists a specific town or village of birth, you can begin searching for new records that might hold your answer. Types of records that may provide birth information are:
- Marriage Records
- Death Records
- Obituaries
- Church Records
- Military Records
- Immigration Records
- Naturalization Records
- Biographies
Use your timeline to trace your ancestor’s actions in the United States and determine the localities where each of these records may have been created, then search for the records in those places. The FamilySearch Research Wiki is a great place to go to discover records for different localities. If you are unfamiliar with using the wiki, you can read more about it in my article “How A Consultant Can Know Everything, Part 4: The FamilySearch Research Wiki.”
Keep searching for records until you find one that gives the exact place of birth or last residence in the old country. Once you have found that, you are ready to begin research in your ancestor’s place of origin. Return to the FamilySearch Research Wiki to discover what kind of records are available in that locality.
Finding Michael Kunch’s Birth Village
I recently completed a project in which my objective was to extend the family lines of immigrants Michael Kunch and Marie Haleczko. When I created a timeline and analyzed my sources, I discovered that a passenger list had been attached to Marie on Ancestry. The passenger list states that Marie’s birthplace was Lipna, Galicia. This was a great find! I was able to discover some online church records from Lipna. I used DNA and the church records to extend Marie’s Ancestry during my Research Like a Pro with DNA study group. You can read all about this project in my research report here.
Michael’s exact birthplace was not listed in any records attached to him on Ancestry. Here is a list of what I discovered as I created my timeline:
- Marriage Records – A marriage Index from Cohoes New York, no birthplace listed
- Death Records – An Ohio Death index, no birthplace listed
- Military Records – A WWII Draft Registration Card lists Poland as the birthplace
Marriage records often list a person’s birthplace, so the first record I wanted to obtain was the original marriage certificate for Michael and Marie that was used to create the indexed record. Vital records for New York State (excluding New York City) are held at the New York State Department of Health. Processing time for a request from the Department of Health can be 8 months or longer. However, on their website, the Department of Health suggests that if the municipality where the event took place is known, submitting a request directly to the local registrar or municipal clerk may save considerable time. I submitted a request to the Cohoes City Clerk, and received the certificate in just 4 weeks!
The certificate provided some great information, including the maiden name of Michael’s mother, which was previously unknown. Unfortunately, only the birth country of Austria was listed. I still needed to discover Michael’s exact place of origin.
I began searching for immigration records. I went first to the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation website and searched for Michael Kunch with negative results. I then searched “New York Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island)” at Ancestry. I wasn’t able to find him in this index either. There is an option to browse the collection if you know the name of the ship your immigrant ancestor traveled on, so I decided to look for a naturalization record to see if I could discover the name of his ship and the date of his arrival.
I learned from my timeline that Michael and Marie moved to Ohio by the time their first child was born in 1918, and that at the time of the census in Lorain, Ohio in 1930, Michael had filed his first papers for naturalization:
I searched “Ohio County Naturalization Records, 1800-1977” at FamilySearch and was able to locate Michael’s Declaration of Intention. It was dated 7 July 1919 in Akron, Ohio, and gave his birthplace as Ozyma, Austria! He traveled on the ship Imperator, departing from Hamburg, Germany and arriving in New York City on 17 July 1913. This was a fantastic record with so many important details!
I now had the name of Michael’s birth village, but since I also had the name of the ship he traveled on, I wanted to look at the passenger list to see if the information there agreed with the declaration I had found. I returned to the New York Passenger and Crew Lists collection at Ancestry. It was really easy to find the passenger list for the Imperator and find Michael on the list.
You can see that the indexer may have had trouble deciphering Michael’s name. No wonder I couldn’t find him in the index! Since I knew who I was looking for, and I had other facts to help me identify Michael, I recognized his name and could see that it was spelled Michal Kuncz.
This record had additional information that I was excited about. His birthplace was listed as Ozenny, Austria – a different spelling, but still likely the same place. His relative in the old country is a brother, Semin Kuncz of Osseny, and his destination is Pennsylvania. I wonder how Michael ended up in Cohoes NY by 1917, when he married Marie. I’m excited to continue my research and discover the answer to this question!
I now had two records stating that Michael’s birthplace was Ozyma or Ozenny/Osseny, Austria. As I continued researching Michael in U.S. records, I was also able to discover his WWI draft registration card. His birthplace listed on this record is Ozenna, Galacia, Austria.
Why did all these records list Austria as Michael’s country of birth while the 1930 census and WWII draft registration card list Poland? The differing countries of birth were confusing until I did some locality research. I learned that from 1815-1918, Poland was divided between the countries of Austria, Russia, and Prussia. Ozenna was located in the Kingdom of Galicia, part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Galicia was annexed into Poland in 1918. Learning about the history of the jurisdiction and boundary changes in that area helped explain the differing birth countries on Michael’s records.
Having discovered three records that show Michael’s village of birth, I am now ready to begin the next phase of my project to extend Michael’s ancestry. I have discovered church records for Ozenna, and I am especially excited that a DNA match contacted the client just a week ago and shared that he was in possession of a digital image of Michael’s birth record, which he was generous enough to share! With this new information, the next phase of the project is going to be exciting!
I’m interested to know whether you have been able to locate the places of origin for your immigrant ancestors. I’d love to hear what records you used. Leave a comment below!
This is the third installment of my three-part series, Tracing Your Immigrant Ancestors. You can find parts one and two here:
